The Drowning

This movie is better than the low star reviews. There's little action and motivations are not immediately clear, but by the end they become perfectly clear.

We're all capable of evil, of being manipulated. And we're also capable of doing evil to protect ourselves, our egos, andour families.

The evil in some is just more evident. Oh and when you contrive to manipulate and hurt others, you may finally meet your match.

RELEASED IN 2016 and directed by Bette Gordon, "The Drowning" focuses on a child psychologist (Josh Charles) whose life is disrupted by the release of a young man from reformatory (Avan Jogia). The doctor's analysis helped confine the kid a dozen years earlier and now the youth seems to show up everywhere and it's irritating; worse, his wife seems smitten with him (Julia Stiles). John C. McGinley plays the lawyer who prosecuted the kid while Robert Clohessy appears as the aloof, irate father.

This is a melancholy psychological drama with crime thriller elements. The focus is on the drama and the remorseful reflections thereof. All aspects of filmmaking are top-notch, including the convincing acting and well-scripted dialogues. The story's unpredictable: Just when you think something's going to happen, it doesn't (and vice versa). Some people refer to the unexpected climax as a "twist," but it's really more of a desperate solution.

The problem viewers have with this movie (besides the lack of thrills and explosions) is that not everything's spelled out; you have to read in between the lines. It's a study on the nature of good and evil within the context of human nature. Can a person be "evil" as a kid? If so, can he be reformed? Can a "good" therapist have elements of evil in his psyche? Did he have to deal with the same evil when he was a kid? What's the secret of overcoming it? The movie even throws in the enigmatic female attraction to "bad boys."

My title blurb reveals that there are similarities to "Good Will Hunting" (1997), but I'd watch this one over that overrated flick any day. Yet the script needed fine-tuned to drive home the movie's points. As it is, they're elusive; and this frustrates some viewers. But post-reflection reveals a lot.

THE FILM RUNS 95 minutes and was shot on the coast of Connecticut (New London, I'm guessing), as well as New York City. WRITER: Stephen Molton & Frank Pugliese wrote the screenplay based on Pat Barker's novel.

GRADE: B-/C+

Omg what a complete pile of sh this movie was. If you are considering watching this film please do not waste the hour and a half that it will steal from your life. I think it is especially frustrating considering the premise of this film had potential and there was obviously some interesting themes which COULD HAVE been explored here although it seems as if the director basically decided he didn't give enough of a f to string any of it together in any type of compelling way whatsoever. I mean honestly I feel like there was just no effort here at all, all of the terrible acting included (even the cast seemed bored). I really don't remember ever feeling this scolded after watching a film in my entire life. Me and my girlfriend searched for a thought provoking thriller for a while before we came across this joke of a movie. We waited for something to bring it together in a realistic or compelling way, and unfortunately implemented enough patience to wait until the entire piece of Sh had ran its course. It was literally so bad that I now have trouble committing to watching any other "suspenseful" movies for the fear of being this disappointed once again. I could get into deeper detail explaining this movies flaws but honestly where do I even start. This movie has literally ruined movies for me, at least for the time being. I didn't even know that a movie could make me feel so frustrated and disappointed. Great, its pizzed me off so much that its managed to push me to creating an IMDb account specifically to write this review, thus wasting even more of my time than the initial 1.5 hours of spew that I sat through. oh well, at least by writing this I may be able to prevent the same from happening to you.

You have seen this cookie cutter paint by numbers 'mystery/thriller'a million times. Manipulative genius sociopath who has everyone conned, who gaslights everyone because they are too stupid to know any better. A creepy stalker who breaks into people's homes threatens them and gets them to apologize to him and/or gets the people he threatens arrested. This is a tired worn out boring story. It was tired and worn out 50 years ago. Every single stereotypic angle from every single movie remotely like this was thrown in. It is the stupidest most frustrating rich white people doing the dumbest things imaginable movie you will ever watch. It's so aggressively dull it's a new art form.

This movie is all about wannabe and turns out not to be about much of anything. I'm a big fan of both Josh Charles and Julia Stiles, and can't believe what ended up on film is what they signed up,for. Stiles is completely wasted in this part. The plot is as nonsensical as the ending. Do not waste your time.